You’d get more truth from the Mouth of Sauron but yeah, I agree with the idea of the constant push-back. Spicer should never have been left to leave the stage without a grilling. Kelly got grilled a bit this weekend though.

Their supporters don’t care. Plus, interviewing her gives her legitimacy.

The rest of us do, though. remember the he didn’t win the popular vote and doesn’t have anything approaching a mandate. He’s not going to alienate his base, but he could easily alienate those who held their nose and voted. He could get a challenge from the moderate right in 4 years.

Additionally, working for the POTUS gives her legitimacy. She’s already a part of the conversation, like it or not. That’s not going to change if NPR or the network news programs just ignore them.

LearnedCoward:

I’m more on the side of stop interviewing her, but I think both sides have valid points.

Agreed that both sides have valid points, but obviously, I lean towards the other side!

I’m not sure I agree with that. She and Spicer, and their boss need constant pushback on the lies that come out of their mouths.

If the goal is to undermine Trump (I’m not 100% sure it is) then I would say avoid Conway. Based on his first press conference, Spicer is super unqualified and does an abysmal job of supporting the Trump position. Conway is slick and smart. I’ve often watched her interviews where she said things where I was like, “Oh, you got them.” If the press didn’t talk to her anymore then she’d eventually go and probably be replaced by someone incompetent, since Trump hires incompetents.

Anyway, it’s a bit moot. Might as well be telling people not to cover Tom Cruise. Fame is it’s own thing, once it gets hold you can’t really dislodge it.

Maybe I’m pie in the skying, but there might still be moderate republicans, who just aren’t getting heard. There are much less of them now, but I think they still exist. [quote=“LearnedCoward, post:11, topic:93438”]
Whatever moderate right people who are left are fully controlled by Trump and the Republican establishment now.
[/quote]

But if there is dissent from their constituents, it gives them a reason to rebel. We can hope this is true, at least.

Humbabella:

Fame is it’s own thing, once it gets hold you can’t really dislodge it.

Given Spicer’s performance - come out, tell a bunch of lies, take no questions - there’s no point in going to White House press briefings, either. Which would make for an interesting presidency if the media largely ignored the White House except for deconstructing press releases… Either way, the press needs to be focused on investigative journalism, not trying to get access to the White House, because that’s not very useful.

Mindysan33:

moderate republicans

LearnedCoward:

What moderate right?

I think perhaps “moderate” is the wrong word for anyone in the Republican party right now. Perhaps “sane reactionary” is more accurate?

At this point, journalists shouldn’t argue with Conway, allowing her the possibility to re-frame the narrative. They should instead have video clips queued up, proving the endless lies and backtracking of Trump. No need to even say “but what do you think about this?”. Just let the clips speak for themselves and allow her to twist in the wind, attempting to answer it.